The present invention relates to communication networks, and, more particularly but not exclusively, to identifying network entities in a peer-to-peer network that at least partly overlaps a conventional network.
A communication network assigns each entity of the network with a unique entity identifier. This identifier is typically made of a sequence of digits. Each user has to know the identifier of each target entity with which the user may want to establish communication. The user usually maintains an ‘address book’ where the identifiers are stored along with respective names, nicknames, or other means that enable the user to recognize the required addressee.
The proliferation of communication networks produces proliferation of personal address books. In many cases a user may subscribe to several communication services, thereby being assigned several identifiers, each for every network terminal in use. Therefore, a user may have several identifiers to reach the same person or business entity.
Furthermore, some networks, such as peer-to-peer networks, piggyback over traditional networks, using their physical infrastructure. In such case, the same network terminal may have two identifiers, a first identifier for the underlying conventional network and a second identifier for the peer-to-peer network.
This proliferation of network entity identifiers creates unnecessary redundancy, ambiguity and information overload.
Address translators are known for a long time, for example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,661,799. However, address translators use predefined rules to convert an address valid in a first address realm into an address valid in a second address realm. Some entity in either address realms has to be aware of the requirement to translate the address and to access the address translator to perform the conversion.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a method and a system for identifying network entities devoid of the above imitations.